Pete stated in part:
“Such an enormous number (100,000+) of "tests" would appear to be thoroughly conclusive proof that excavated civil-war-&-earlier artillery projectiles are NOT "shock-sensitive." (Unlike 20th-Century projectiles.)
The problem is that the average citizen and policeman (and even military personnel) cannot distinguish between a highly dangerous 20th-Century shell and a comparatively harmless civil war era one. So, the Bomb Squad gets called for either kind.
Some Public-Safety personnel are open to Education on the subject -- and some are not. I've made good progress with the Richmond-area police departments. I suggest that it's worth a try with your local police department.”
Pete,et al: I understand where you are coming from. Now perhaps you should understand where the local Public Safety personnel are coming from. I am only speaking from the point of view of the first line, local police in how to handle such devices, not how a bomb squad would or should handle things. I was a policeman for 28 years, 15 as a sergeant, in the Chicago area before retiring. Sorry to say, we are largely trained to base our response on the worst case scenario. Three reasons for that being; the first, foremost and ultimate reason of public safety. Secondarily officer safety and thirdly civil liability. Note I listed public safety first. As a front line supervisor my duty was to make reasonable full use of the resources available to me. On the totally remote chance an ACW explosive device were found in my jurisdiction, barring some reason to believe it has been rendered safe, EVEN KNOWING WHAT I HAVE LEARNED HERE, to this day, I would notify the bomb squad that our department used. They then could decide how they wanted to handle it. If I did anything else and by the freakiest of events it did explode, there would be no defense for the loss of life or damage to property be it civilian or officer. While I hate to see history destroyed, I would hate even more to see a living person destroyed. Not to pass the buck to the bomb squad, but perhaps they would respond differently if trained specifically to deal with such projectiles. AND before you bring up the 100,000 times a shell has been poked, prodded and dug up with no recorded detonations, police open car trunks thousands of times a day and nothing happens. A coworker of mine did so one day and was promptly shot in the face with a rifle and killed. While history may give an idea of future events, it isn’t conclusive. Just my 2 cents worth.